Turn Of The Hour
by shipperchick
Summary: "It was the turn of the hour, and Lex Luthor had nowhere to be." Chlex friendship
1. Fortuitous Coincidence

TITLE: Turn of The Hour  
  
AUTHOR: shipperchick, shipperchick_42@yahoo.com  
  
CATEGORY: futurefic, vignette, Chloe/Lex friendship  
  
DISCLAIMER: The characters and situations of 'Smallville' are the property of Warner Bros. and DC Comics. No profit is being made from this endeavor.  
  
RATING: G AUTHORS NOTES: I am currently seeking a Chlex/Chlark friendly beta reader to review my stories for canon, flow, characterization, and distillation of concepts. If you like what you're reading and think you could help, please drop me a line at shipperchick_42@yahoo.com.  
  
Regarding the story: I say 'bah!' to the idea of Lex's "unavoidable" evil destiny, and essentially ignore it. If you have a problem with that lack of explanation, then perhaps this story is not for you. Though, if you're not into canonical stories, what are you doing reading Chlex?  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----  
  
Ten 'til ten in the morning, and the streets of New York City were teeming.  
  
Here, a girl with blue hair skating past, sipping on coffee. There, a harassed nanny pushing a pair of squalling children to the park. A businesswoman, a street vendor, a flock of Catholic schoolgirls... they all slid over and through the pale gaze of a still, pale man.  
  
It was the turn of the hour, and everyone had somewhere to be - everyone but Lex Luthor.  
  
He'd called for and slid into the limo on a whim. There were, of course, places he *could* be... Business and charity brunches, greasing the right palms. Health clubs and spas, a private jet waiting to whisk him to any isolated corner of the world. But... but. .but there was nowhere he needed to be. In the greatest irony of his life, Lex Luthor had schemed and maneuvered himself into obsolescence.  
  
Winning over the LuthorCorp board, having his father ousted and 'promoted' into a useless advisory position, moving to New York to build up LexCorp - a faster, hungrier corporation in the new breed of corporations, that had been Lex's dream... his destiny. Unfortunately, in creating a new vision of the corporate world, building not on the backs of underlings but with the hands of eager and capable colleagues, he'd delegated himself out of necessity. LexCorp was chock full of greyhound-lean talent and running on smoothly oiled wheels... it left Lex depressingly little to scheme about.  
  
Which was why Lex Luthor, one of the most powerful, influential, and wealthy men in the western world, found himself - in a metaphoric sense only, of course, -- twiddling his thumbs.  
  
Perhaps it was fate; that he decided to step out of the car and join the hurtling masses, strolling to their scurry, ever so slightly apart. Very much apart, if one took in his obscenely sybaritic clothes and the limo that kept silently apace. If not fate, then a very happy accident (and Lex had never been one to believe in those) that caused a pink-cashmere wrapped shoulder to bump roughly against his, and a fortuitous coincidence (didn't believe in those either) that caused the bag gripped in the hand attached to the shoulder to go tumbling down, scattering tightly rolled posters and a host of papers across the sidewalk.  
  
A fluent string of curses emerged from the owner of the bag and shoulder, and Lex watched, somewhat amused but mostly irritated, as a blond head bobbed up and down as she (for it was most definitely a she) stooped along the sidewalk to gather her belongings. The head turned and Lex's irritation quickly turned to shock and surprise, in that order.  
  
"Well? Are you going to... Lex?"  
  
The bag, hand, head, and shoulder all belonged to a somewhat familiar face, and Lex smiled, a well practiced social expression that could mean nothing. or everything. Bending and hitching up his trouser legs, he reached for a wayward poster and handed it to the blonde struck momentarily dumb.  
  
"Hello, Chloe."  
  
"Lex? Lex Luthor?"  
  
He had the urge to laugh, and despite the iron will he normally kept upon his emotive urges, a short bark emerged from him. It was answered almost unconsciously by a tip-tilted pink-lipsticked smile on the girl across from him.  
  
"Exactly how many entirely bald men do you know, Ms. Sullivan, that you have trouble recognizing me?"  
  
They stood, and Chloe shouldered the colorful hobo bag that had begun to drift towards her elbow.  
  
"Not too many, but I also don't know many billionaires out walking the streets of Manhattan on a weekday morning. What brings you to my little corner of the world, Lex? Need directions back to the schwank areas?"  
  
A tilt of the aforementioned bald head, and he ran his eyes up and down her person. She couldn't even feel insulted, because there was nothing prurient or untoward in the gaze, just calculation and assessment. same as ever, for the Luthors.  
  
She'd changed a little, and a lot. The perky short hair of high school was gone, replaced by hair that was longer, feathered at the ends. Still offbeat, still individual, but suiting the cooler gaze that was directed his way. Her face had thinned, the chin sharper, emphasizing the eyes currently lasering into his. He was surprised, given her chosen profession, to see her decked out casually in jeans and a linen blouse, along with the pink sweater that had felt so soft against his arm. But perhaps it was her day off.  
  
A muffled cough from the girl in question, and he realized there'd been a question directed his way. His thoughts gave him another idea, and again on a whim, he blurted (though Luthors never blurted) out the words that would change the direction of his day entirely.  
  
"I was under the impression that the Upper East Side counted itself as one of the 'schwank' areas. actually, Ms. Sullivan, I was just going to grab myself some brunch. Would you care to join me? Unless there's somewhere you have to be."  
  
An instinctive glance down at her watch, and he felt for the rest of his days that she must have seen something of the slight desolation in his gaze, for after the instant it would take to process such information, her head came up and shook away whatever engagement she'd obviously had planned. The knowledge didn't erase the pleased smile from his lips upon hearing her reply, though.  
  
"Mr. Luthor, that is a great idea! I'm starving, and poor enough that I never turn down the offer of free food. Where do you want to go?"  
  
Sweeping one hand towards the limo that had stopped beside them; he placed the other under her arm and guided her towards the door that was opened for them. Taking gentle possession of her bags and handing them over to one of the retainers that always seemed to surround him these days, he pushed her softly into the low car and joined her.  
  
"Wherever you'd like to go, Ms. Sullivan. The world, or at least New York, is your oyster."  
  
"How do you feel about dumplings, Mr. Luthor?" 


	2. Angstin' It

+++++++  
  
Glancing up as they settled into their chairs, Chloe took notice for the first time of the two hulking figures standing a none-too-discreet distance away. Her eyebrow arched a question at Lex, and he sheepishly (as sheepish as a Luthor could be, anyway) replied;  
  
"Temporary situation. There's been a recent increase in ... ah... angry letters to Lex and LuthorCorp lately. I thought that, just this once, it might be prudent."  
  
He waited for the inevitable freeze, the look of disbelief and mild distaste that had, in the end, driven him away from Clark's friendship... Lex knew that he was nowhere near normal, and it was only a matter of time before those people that lived in the 'real world' were repelled by the too- obvious traps and trappings of his life.  
  
He watched his companion carefully as she tilted her head oh-so-slightly, a move that he remembered from his infrequent encounters with the indomitable teenaged Chloe.  
  
The look in her eyes was both familiar and foreign, as assessing and sharp as ever it had been, but warmer, more accessible now. Chloe Sullivan had always been open and warm with her friends, as he'd seen when he'd watched her interact with Clark. Unfortunately, he'd never counted himself amongst that small, select number. Now, though, it seemed that a tie to Smallville was warrant enough for a relenting of the barriers, and Chloe's demeanor was almost. friendly?  
  
"You know," she remarked, and Lex was startled out of his thoughts. When had he lost the ability to think along seven tracks at once? "I shouldn't be surprised. the surprise really is that you've managed to do without them this long. you must run into this kind of thing on a depressingly regular basis."  
  
A pause as she waited for confirmation. The rueful purse of his lips seemed all she needed.  
  
"You should be commended, really, Lex. I never thought about it, but you must have fought hard to try and keep your life as normal as. well, as normal as possible, considering."  
  
A jolt, the words, that someone from Smallville had the perspicacity to realize the town's resident demi-god (or demon, depending on who you'd ask) had spent several years balancing his otherworldly heritage and his embarrassingly domestic desires. Of course, he thought, if someone from Smallville was going to have that insight, it would be Chloe. The town's resident bloodhound.  
  
He could vouchsafe no response to her words, struggling with the uncalled- for and inexplicable bloom of warmth somewhere in the vicinity of his chest. He was unclear as to its origins. perhaps the coffee at six had been a little off? Impossible, with the immaculate way his food was prepared. Surely, though, he couldn't be basking in the approval of this blunt, utterly uncomplicated little girl? Curious. Maybe he'd go see his personal physician.  
  
She crinkled her nose at him, the silence stretching too long for her taste.  
  
"This is the part where you say something, Lex."  
  
He leaned forward, casually adjusting his jacket, shifting easily. No hint of his discomfiture was obvious, and he thanked the years of prep school and Lionel's personal, torturous version of training for that ability to mask it. Her eyes followed his movements and admired, as always, the grace that filled them.  
  
"I was." He spoke slowly, deliberately, weighing each word. It was good to know, Chloe thought, that some things stayed the same. "I was just thinking about your perception, Chloe." The unasked admission to her earlier statement widened her eyes, an openness that had not been present in the young man she'd known only slightly. Perhaps he wasn't quite the same.  
  
"You were always one of the most .aware people in Smallville. I'm glad to see that hasn't changed." An unconscious echo of her earlier words, and it caused a bit of confusion, that he'd noticed her at all. She'd been like a terrier puppy, unrelenting but ignorable at his heels.  
  
"So, how go the journalistic efforts?" He could have kept tabs on her, as he had on Clark and Lana after their departure from Smallville, but he'd never thought to. She had, quite frankly, been a footnote in his Smallville story, dwarfed by the larger saga of Clark and his mysteries.  
  
Her head tilted in the other direction as an indefinable expression crossed her face, and her eyes focused for an instant far into the middle distance  
  
"Oh! That! Yeah, well, there was a change of plans in college. I'm in research now. I'm actually studying for my Ph.D."  
  
She couldn't have surprised him more if she'd announced her impending marriage to Clark Kent. In fact, that would probably surprise him less. Chloe's crush on Clark was a fixed entity in Lex's mind, as inexorable a part of her personality as her investigative fervor and her lofty journalistic ambitions. It was safe, he decided, to show his reaction to the announcement.  
  
He sat up abruptly, eyes widening half-humorously, half-seriously.  
  
"What? The last time I checked, no pigs were flying, and according to my father, Hades is as warm as ever. how could it be that Chloe Sullivan no longer wants to be a star reporter?"  
  
An uncomfortable beat as she absorbed his biting tone when he spoke of Lionel, and he remembered that plant manager's daughter or no, Chloe had never truly understood the depths of the battle raging between the two generations of Luthor men. She covered it with a smooth laugh, her smile crinkling the corners of her eyes and masking the apprehension there, and Lex wondered when Chloe Sullivan had grown up into such a .self-possessed woman. He felt as if he'd stayed the same since Smallville, ruthless and willful and wistful as ever. Weak as ever, while the people from his past became polished adults, at peace with themselves and their worlds. But perhaps he was being a touch maudlin.  
  
"Yeah, well, the Wall of Weird had to go sometime. My roommates were starting to complain. And, well. I found out a lot of things about Truth and what it really means along the way."  
  
Her tone went from playful to plaintive, trailing off into suggestive silence. He knew, somehow, that he had a vested interest in her epiphany, and took a wild guess.  
  
"Clark?"  
  
The blonde head shot up suddenly, and he knew that while her mouth had invited the inquiry, her head had not been consulted. Suddenly, he felt comfortable again, knowing that the Chloe he had known, brash and a tad awkward, still existed. The eyes took on a familiar deer-in-the-headlights look, and then she narrowed them. He could see her trying to work out his meaning and deduce if she'd revealed too much.  
  
Sighing, he slouched back again, in a chair that was not as comfortable as it looked.  
  
"Relax, Chloe. I figured it out years ago."  
  
Eyes so wide she looked absurd, and then she tried to cover.  
  
"Figured out what?"  
  
"That Clark is. not from around here? That he's. shall we say, special?"  
  
Her back hit the chair with a muffled thump, and she tried to control her breathing, unsuccessfully. She shut her gaping mouth, and after a few beats of mighty effort, swiftly recovered her composure. He applauded the attempt, as unnecessary as it was.  
  
"What do you mean, Lex? Clark's from Smallville, same as Pete. And yeah, he's pretty unique, but I don't get." her voice trailed off uncertainly as the bald head before her shook ruefully, the grim smile on Lex's face blooming into full-fledged laughter tinged with a sharp edge.  
  
"Ah, Chloe, what a good friend you are." And then, as quickly as it had come, the laughter went, leaving behind a deadly serious Lex. This Lex, Chloe knew, was closer to the public face of Lex Luthor now... the young man who'd tried so hard to be amiable in Smallville was no longer evident.  
  
"Understand me, Chloe. My friendship with Clark was as precious to me as yours was to you... and just, I'm presuming, as you chose to keep his secret, so too did I. For many the same reasons, I would venture to guess."  
  
The words took her aback, more so because of their utterly earnest tone. Chloe's day job might no longer be culling the lies and propaganda from the truth, but the nose she'd developed at a tender age was still very much present. There had been one thing in particular that The Nose had picked up on.  
  
"Your friendship with Clark *was* precious? Why the past tense, Lex?"  
  
Another small smile, and Chloe was quickly coming to the conclusion that its sheer smugness infuriated her. Why did it seem like he could predict every one of her words?  
  
"Yes, Chloe, past tense. Deliberately so. I discovered Clark's personal truth quite a while ago... but he doesn't know."  
  
A soft gasp from the woman who was seated across from him, and Lex's eyes shot up from their earnest contemplation of the salt cellars. They were opened, metaphorically, as he took in the expression on her face. Now *this* he hadn't known.  
  
"You too? He never knew that you'd found out either?"  
  
Silently, she nodded. After a minute of shared silence, she waved a hand at him wearily to continue. Now, it seemed, they had more in common than formative years spent in a cow-poke Kansas town.  
  
"Simply put, I waited an unconscionably long time for Clark to give me the trust to go with the knowledge I already had. It never happened, and in the end, I was, immature though it may have been, *hurt* that he could never give that trust to me. In the end, I couldn't handle having the secret that I had no right too. That I would never have the right too. I pushed him away, Ms. Sullivan, from hurt and pique at the power he had over me."  
  
He sighed ruefully, accepting and amused as he'd never been before of his own weaknesses.  
  
"The power of a teenage boy I'd considered a brother ...but he never really opened up to me."  
  
His words trailed off, sliding into the air with a wistfulness that could not be hidden. The silence this time was filled with remembered grief for the most intense friendship either of them had ever known. It seeped up through their pores from places embedded deep within, through wounds that should have long healed over. It filled the space between them, and Chloe's words dropped into it like stones into mud.  
  
"Especially after he told Pete and Lana."  
  
They were a quiet whisper, but the weary anguish in them still throbbed with intensity. It was an old hurt, worn soft around the edges, and it called to an identical ache in him. Lex wondered anew if there was something in Clark's unusual heritage to explain the powerful pull he had on the people around him.  
  
He sighed again, and rubbed his hand over his scalp, an old affectation he'd never outgrown completely.  
  
"I didn't know about Lana. I'd guessed about Pete, but..."  
  
"Halfway through junior year. A week before they started dating."  
  
"Huh..."  
  
No other words were needed. They did indeed have more in common than they'd ever known... the two left outside the golden circle, not to be trusted for their ulterior motives and incessant curiosity. Not to be trusted...  
  
A few more minutes, and Lex pulled himself from the morass of memories that had surrounded Smallville, enough to chase him to Metropolis, enough to be a not-insignificant factor in his decision to base LexCorp out of New York... far away from Kansas. He sighed roughly, trying to put the thoughts behind him. Unbidden, one unanswered question tumbled from his lips.  
  
"So why didn't you...."  
  
The words came from Lex without thought, and he cursed himself. Did he really want to spend this time mulling over old issues? He'd have been better off twiddling his thumbs and staring at crowds.  
  
Chloe looked as if she was thinking much the same thing, Lex thought ruefully. Except... the curiosity was undeniable. Lex had had a dozen reasons for not confronting the Kents, but Chloe Sullivan, one of his innocuous adolescent friends? What reason could she have?  
  
A determined expression settled upon the familiar-yet-foreign features, and she gave him back the openness he'd been so generous with throughout their odd discussion.  
  
"I needed Clark to trust me, Lex. I didn't need to be the snoopy reporter friend that had ferreted out his secret through fair means or foul. We'd already had enough problems with that already."  
  
Lex accepted the words with yet another pang of recognition. Their stories were so similar, he wondered what would have happened had they discovered this when still in Smallville, still around the Kents. Would they have had the courage, then, to confront their common best friend? His meandering thoughts were interrupted as Chloe sat forward and her tone became urgent, intense... demanding.  
  
"Which, by the way, I wasn't. His secret was glaringly obvious if you even thought to look for something out of the ordinary... and there was plenty out of the ordinary about Clark Kent and his actions. it was like a neon sign pointing the way. I never went looking for the truth about him after that time I looked into his adoption, as God is my witness."  
  
The words had the ring of often-rehearsed to him, and he wondered if she'd practiced it, if it was her version of the speech he'd given in his head dozens of times. The speech that would tell Clark that Lex had figured out The Secret, that it was alright to be honest... that would get it all out in the open... *finally*. The speech he'd never given.  
  
"I believe you Chloe. It sounds like we had very much the same experience. I only wish I'd known at the time. What did you do, after you figured out he wasn't going to tell you?"  
  
It went beyond curiosity now, and fell into intense scrutiny... he really wanted to know how closely her journey through the greatest of Smallville's secrets mirrored his.  
  
She had no great epiphanies or revelations to offer him, no easily made decisions or firm conclusions. Only her truth, sad and tarnished as it was.  
  
"What could I do, Lex? What did he leave to me? I was trapped with the knowledge, but I couldn't... *wouldn't* share that with him when he wouldn't give it to me. I didn't deserve it from him, that lack of trust. Reporter or no, there are things that go beyond the scoop. I'd thought Clark's friendship was one of them, but..."  
  
A shadow of shame in his heart, that the younger Lex Luthor had been so carried away with his pique he'd never noticed what had occurred under his nose. He wasn't surprised... Lex of old had been a self-centered, reactionary creature, never noticing the currents around him unless they served to his advantage. And Chloe's anger would not have served any advantage to his own, though she had been more justified in that anger than he. Lex was well aware that his story was not so pristine ... he had poked and pried incessantly before he realized the importance of the other young man's presence in his life, before his father's training was largely undone by the wholesome atmosphere of Smallville. He had used fair means and foul, and Lex knew he was no innocent in this tale. Many would say that he had no right to feel injured, that both he and Clark had betrayed the friendship. That, however, did not make the hurt, as irrational as it might be, any less real.  
  
"So, I covered his tracks as best I could without him knowing, helped in the only way I could, and waited. And when the waiting went on too long, things just... faded away. I knew that without the trust we didn't really have anything worth maintaining. We went to Met U., and he became a journalism major, and I... became a chemistry major, transferred to Northwestern, and it... just ended."  
  
His interest was piqued by several of the statements she'd made, his thoughts skittering off on a dozen different tangents, but he knew that this wasn't the moment. A hesitant pause, and then a pale, slender hand reached out to where her calloused fingers were worrying the edge of the linen tablecloth. It cupped over her palms and stilled their nervous movement, transmitting silently his depths of shared pain and understanding. No fairy tale ending for them, no cleansing and cathartic confrontation to let it all come out. Only the sad, twisted unraveling of something they'd both thought to be more precious and pure than it had been. The realization of taint was something he'd never grow accustomed to, for all the rest of his days.  
  
Several long minutes passed, as waiters hustled by and the muted clink and clatter of fine china filled the space between them. It was amazing, but Lex could feel the bottled hurt and impotent anger of years past drain away, the communion felt in sharing that hurt with another person ameliorating the negative emotions almost entirely. Was this what the poets and counselors spoke of when they rhapsodized about 'sharing and caring'? Perhaps, mused Lex, the Luthors weren't entirely correct in their scoffing at such a peasant concept. Perhaps he ought to do it more often. Beat fencing any day.  
  
Chloe sighed, a long, languorous exhalation ... pushing out the same ugly and old feelings that had been stirred up in him. It was even more amazing, Lex thought, that this one shared point of reference - admittedly not inconsiderable -- should make him feel as if he knew this girl, this virtual stranger, inside and out in ways he'd never known any of a long line of acquaintances, schoolmates and partners in destruction. But again, he was probably being melodramatic.  
  
Another few minutes, and the hum around them broke through the cocoon of misery they'd constructed, pulling them back into the concrete world that was eons away from Smallville. She shifted, he lifted a hand for the waiter's attention, and they shook off the past. There was much more to both Chloe Sullivan and Lex Luthor now than Smallville. 


	3. Getting To Know You

++++++++  
  
Sipping gingerly on scalding hot coffee, Chloe's eyes drifted shut as she emitted a low hum of appreciation. Grinning, Lex decided that he couldn't let this pass without comment.  
  
"So, still a caffeine aficionado? Good. This at least tells me that you haven't been replaced by a pod person."  
  
Opening her eyes a slit, just wide enough to let Lex feel her displeasure at having a Coffee Moment interrupted, Chloe snarked back, "Yeah, well, we poor grad students have to live on something, seeing as how there's no money for food."  
  
Well, now that she mentioned it...  
  
"So, chemistry, eh? Is that what you're studying now?"  
  
The slit-eyed look returned as she assessed his tone. Gone was the serious and somber tone of minutes before. It seemed that they had decided to let Smallville rest where it belonged. In the past. On to bigger and brighter things. Or in the case of her collegiate years, bigger and smellier.  
  
"Physical chemistry, to be exact." She watched, secretly amused, as his expression turned from a slightly condescending smirk to properly respectful. So, he really had been a science person in college... only they would truly understand the meaning of her particular course of study.  
  
"You know, I was a chem. major in college as well. Organic." He smirked at her, and was answered by an almost adolescent roll of the eyes. Was he asking for it?  
  
"Well, of course. What else would qualify you to run a crap factory? That *is* why your Dad assigned you to Plant Three, isn't it?" She blinked innocently at him, and he found it impossible to garner resentment at her unsubtle poke at his younger, wilder self. After all, it was well known that his 'qualifications' were the least of the reasons for his exile.  
  
"Anyway, I was physical chemistry. My Ph.D. is in an interdisciplinary program, combining exogeology and chemistry, as well as a little bit of physics.... the degree is still chemistry, though."  
  
Lex blinked and sat back, bemused.  
  
"What, exactly, brought on this interest in geology and chemistry, exactly? And what on earth would a program like that be studying?"  
  
Openly amused now, she surveyed him over the rim of her cup, waiting for the best moment to drop her revelation.  
  
"Well, at the moment, we're studying the radiant properties of certain naturally occurring minerals, and their effects on animal and plant physiology. As to how I gained an interest..."  
  
He sat for a minute, mulling over her words. In a flash, the answer came to him, and he watched as the realization was reflected back in her smiling -no, *smirking*-- eyes. As one, they gave voice to the recognition...  
  
"Meteor rocks!"  
  
Chuckling, Chloe set down the cup, her bangs falling forward into those eyes as she ruefully admitted;  
  
"Yeah, well, I got tired of *knowing* the truth, having the patterns of behavior and their cause all clearly laid out in front of me, and not being able to get anyone to believe me! And you know why they didn't believe me, Lex? Because I didn't have the whys and wherefores, the details. They had no reason to believe me, just as I had no real reason for the theory at all."  
  
He was surprised at her frank admission... her meteor theory had been like a child to Chloe, lavished with attention and affection, and fiercely protected against all comers.  
  
"I thought... and I think, so did my dad, that when I moved out of Smallville, my interest in meteor rocks and the Wall of Weird would fade... be replaced by political scandals, corporate cover-ups... your usual journalism stuff. But that didn't happen."  
  
He chuckled at the expression of remembered bewilderment on her face. Apparently, Chloe herself had not had much say in the switching of her career tracks. It was funny, the paths life led (or pushed) you down, unbeknownst to you...  
  
"I was still so interested in the meteorites and why they did what they did... I mean, they had such a wide and disparate range of effects on people ...some people were affected permanently, some peripherally... some people had physical effects, others psychological. It was like the meteor rock was just a catch-all excuse for all the crazy weirdness that happened to us! So I took some chemistry courses, and some biology courses... and I tried to understand what exactly could be happening."  
  
Now it was her turn to laugh at the youthful naivete she'd been subject to.  
  
"I had *no* *idea*, at the time, of course, what a mammoth task I was undertaking... but it just sort of sucked me under... and I fell in love with the science, with the concrete knowledge that, given the right technique, was unassailable and unarguable. It felt good, to know the Truth and be able to tell people... and have them believe me."  
  
This last in a playful tone, poking fun at Chloe's eccentric and often ignored fervency about her Meteor Theory... such as it was. And Lex was struck at once with a wave of awesome respect and ... dare he say it... a touch of fondness for the spritely woman he faced. It took guts, he thought with a slight twinge of bitterness, to rebel against preconceived notions of what you were going to be... to realize your true destiny lay in another direction entirely. And Lex realized that he and the rest of Smallville had severely underestimated the maturity and strength of Chloe Sullivan. She had been dwarfed, rendered cartoonish and cliched near the otherworldly perfection of Lana Lang and the plain old otherworldliness of Clark Kent.  
  
"So... here you are."  
  
"Here I am," she agreed, "and so are you. What happy coincidence allowed the very-nearly-inconceivable ...namely, little ole me sharing a meal with the one and only Lex Luthor, to occur? Had a hankering to be interviewed and you thought I'd be up for another try?"  
  
Lex laughed outright at the reminder of Chloe's many failed attempts to get him into an interview and then actually be *able* to interview him... always interrupted as they were by natural and unnatural disasters. The sound, while motivated by real amusement, carried a hard bite to it. Chloe's gaze became assessing, and if he'd thought to look, he'd see the realization in her face when she came to the obvious (and right) conclusion... whatever had motivated Lex Luthor to wander the streets of Manhattan, he didn't want or need to talk about it. And judging by the rusty sound of Lex's laugh, what he needed (and hopefully wanted) was an easy and uncomplicated meeting of two more-like-than-she'd-ever-realized minds. One of the best advantages, Chloe mused, to having left the reporting field was that she didn't always have to be zooming in on the story. She could even, the thought bizarrely occurred, become a friend, at least for a day, to Lex Luthor. Stranger things had happened. Hell, stranger things had happened *to* *her*.  
  
Chloe Sullivan had grown into an impressively compassionate and perceptive young woman, if she did say so herself. Too bad there weren't too many friends around to realize the fact. Damn, now *she* was becoming maudlin. Couldn't let that happen.  
  
Shaking a playfully admonishing finger in his direction, Chloe mustered up an impressively miffed face.  
  
"Laugh all you want, Mr. Luthor... we both know the truth. I bet half the reason I was forced to switch careers was the unending frustration of being *this* *close* to the interview of the lifetime and having it *cruelly* snatched away from me."  
  
This last with a melodramatic sweep of the hand to her forehead, and Lex was seriously in danger of falling out of his chair. Man, it had been a long time since he'd really laughed. It was amazing, what a meeting with an old... well, old acquaintance and hopefully new friend, could do for the constitution. Maybe he should give Pete a call...  
  
Sniffing, Chloe reached for her coffee cup and tossed her hair.  
  
"The least you can do to make up for the trauma you caused me is to pay for a meal."  
  
She sniffed again, and this time Lex's eyes were open to the mischievous look that creeped onto Chloe's face. He waited in somewhat breathless anticipation to see what she'd throw his way next.  
  
"In fact..." the words were drawn out slowly as Chloe savored the idea they prefaced like fine coffee. He leaned forward, knowing that this would be good.  
  
"In fact, Lex, I think you owe me at *least* an entire *day's* worth of meals! And entertainment! And exploring! How's today for you?"  
  
Lex blinked once again, and sat back. Maybe he'd missed a paragraph.  
  
"You want me to... pay for your food?"  
  
Shaking her head impatiently, Chloe sighed. This was too much fun. Lex had an almost Kent-like glower of incomprehension on his face.  
  
"No, Lex. I want you to pay for *our* food! And entertainment! I, Chloe Sullivan, do hereby declare that Lex Luthor shall clear his debts to me by indulging, with me, in a traditional New York City Day of Fun!"  
  
"Day of... fun?" he repeated weakly.  
  
"Jeez, do Luthors not watch Friends reruns? Yes, Lex, Day of Fun. Whereby you and I engage in a leisurely exploration of The Greatest City in The World. I'd planned for next Tuesday, but today's so nice, *and* I could have company...."  
  
She trailed off, wondering if her self-congratulatory assessment had been an entire load of crock. Oh God, he's probably horrified, she thought, mortified.  
  
A glimmer of a smile appeared at the corners of Lex's lips, though Chloe was too busy agonizing to notice it.  
  
"You... plan these?"  
  
"Well," she began fidgeting, clearly uncomfortable now with her impulsive invitation and even more impulsive personal revelations. "Yeah. I know, super dork-o-rama, but hey, I'd never set foot outside the lab otherwise!" she exclaimed defensively.  
  
Lex couldn't help it, he started laughing again, despite the interesting shade of red that began to creep up Chloe's cheeks. "No, no... that's not what I meant. No dork-o-anything implied. I simply... hadn't expected you to be so... organized about it."  
  
Huffily, this time unfeigned, Chloe reached below the table and began to gather her things.  
  
"Yeah, well, people change, *thank* you very much Mr. Luthor. So, I gather there's to be no day of any kind. I'll just be going now, if you don't mind..."  
  
Reaching out a hand urgently, Lex stilled her jerky movements. He turned their hands, so that his palm brushed oh-so-lightly against hers.  
  
"Chloe, I'm sorry... I didn't mean to mock you. I wholeheartedly accept your invitation... it's actually the best invitation I've received in... quite a while."  
  
Her things forgotten, Chloe attempted to smother a smile that could only have qualified as a 'beam', and how uncool would *that* look?  
  
"Really?" Her pleased tone spoke volumes, and Lex's smile increased in response to the happiness in it.  
  
"Really." He confirmed softly, his eyes mesmerizing in their simple honesty, their intensity overwhelming in the purity of it. For once, Lex Luthor let all his calculations about possible motivations, ramifications, and results of the invitation and his response slide away, and accepted something -just this once -- at face value.  
  
The mischievous look returned to her eyes, and she directed them demurely at the table to hide it as Lex's hand continued to brush hers and the words came rushing out.  
  
"Better than the invitation to the Playboy mansion?"  
  
Lex sat back, once again surprised and infinitely amused by her irreverence.  
  
"How did you know about that?"  
  
Chloe made a moue of innocence as her eyes raised to meet his.  
  
"I may not be a reporter anymore, but I do have my sources Mr. Luthor."  
  
"So, should I be afraid of my name ending up in the papers after all?"  
  
"Only if the Day of Fun isn't up to my standards, Mr. Luthor. The ball, as they say, is very much in your court." Her eyes twinkled with the relish of a good sparring match; the likes of which she hadn't seen in years. Lex's, she noticed with surprise, were doing the same thing.  
  
Decisively, Lex sat up straight and waved over the waiter, motioning for the check to their virtually untouched brunch.  
  
"Well, since so much is at stake, I'd better get right away, wouldn't you say?"  
  
Laughing at his feigned earnestness, Chloe nodded her head.  
  
"Oh, most definitely."  
  
The waiter bustled over, richly padded leather case in hand. Without so much as glancing down, Lex threw in a bill of some impossibly high denomination and thrust it back at the waiter, waving away offers of change. Chloe snorted as the expression on the server's face turned from mildly obsequious to overtly worshipful.  
  
"Shall we go, then, Ms. Sullivan?"  
  
"In a moment, Mr. Luthor. I need to call my lab and let them know that *I* will *not* be in today."  
  
He smiled at the words, announced with such relish that it made them impossible *not* to smile at, and proffered his cell phone.  
  
"Call away, Ms. Sullivan."  
  
Chloe waved off the impossibly small unit with a dubious look that clearly questioned the ability of something *that* tiny to function as a communication device.  
  
"Um... I think I'll just find myself a pay phone. You do *not* want to know the kind of reaction there'd be if 'Lex Luthor's Cell Phone' showed up on the caller ID."  
  
Smiling and nodding in understanding (dammit, he was *not* going to be sensitive to the undertones in that statement, thinking simply today, remember), Lex pocketed the phone as Chloe stood and waved the now-familiar finger in his face.  
  
"You. Stay. I'll be back in a minute. Meanwhile, you, Crosby, Stills, and Nash back there," she said, indicating the hulking bodyguards; "can figure out exactly where we're going. When I get back, the Day of Fun will officially commence!"  
  
With a definitive bounce, Chloe turned on her heel and walked away, her bobbing blonde head clearly visible even from a distance.  
  
Lex's chuckle turned into quiet guffaws that earned him a few stares from his soi sophisticated neighbors. Life's strange and twisted paths indeed. Who would have predicted the path that this day had taken? And in such a short time, too.  
  
Glancing down at his watch as he reached again for his cup of coffee, Lex Luthor smiled. Ten 'til twelve. It was the turn of the hour, and there was nowhere else he'd rather be. 


End file.
